Dream significance

[David@2011]

Dreams are used all the time in fiction: guiding characters and aiding their adventures, providing a warning to a certain character, or changing a person in drastic ways forever. Dreams shape characters and even us as humans. So they obviously play a big role in stories.
I use them as inspiration to the characters to become who they are or I use them as divine messages.
How do you o how have you used dreams in your own fiction.

 

[pmmg]

For me, Personally, I almost never remember my dreams, so they dont help me much at all.

In my stories, I think I've only had an actual dream matter once, and it was because they were dreaming that it was odd, not really what it was.

I do have people who have visions, usually drug induced, such as an oracle, and they have meaning. If I use them, I try to use them as a type of guiding, or showing a possible future, and I try to make them appropriately hazy and dream like.

 

[CupofJoe]

I remember dreams all the time and I am lucky that I often have lucid dreams, but aside from the odd surreal image that sticks they don't influence my writing. As for how my character's dreams influence their actions...
They don't.
Maybe a nightmare or touch of PTSD when it is called for, but not dreams in general.

 

[Nighty_Knight]

I intend on using them for mine. Particularly for a certain character in the story. Not so much as inspiration or or divine messages. But more cryptic. A bit of foreshadowing. And a surreal nature that dreams tend to have. I can’t stand when dreams in TV or movies end up so… normal. My dreams are like watching TV with the remote in my hand while having severe ADHD, but the same character is in every show and commercial.